{"id":135398,"date":"2023-07-03T16:04:42","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T23:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=135398"},"modified":"2023-07-03T16:04:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T23:04:42","slug":"china-to-stay-out-of-official-creditors-platform-but-sri-lanka-very-confident-of-bilateral-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/07\/03\/china-to-stay-out-of-official-creditors-platform-but-sri-lanka-very-confident-of-bilateral-support\/","title":{"rendered":"China to stay out of official creditors\u2019 platform, but Sri Lanka \u2018very confident\u2019 of bilateral support"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0MEERA SRINIVASAN Courtesy The Hindu BusinessLine<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The country faces the challenge of restructuring its foreign and domestic debt ahead of an IMF deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COLOMBO<\/strong>  China will not join\u201d the official creditors\u2019 platform negotiating a common debt treatment plan with Sri Lanka, but Colombo is very confident\u201d of Beijing\u2019s bilateral support to the island\u2019s economic recovery, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are very hopeful of China\u2019s cooperation. I was recently in China and met with the Foreign Minister, Finance Minister, and Chairman of the Exim Bank [Export-Import Bank of China]. They have said they will not come on board the common platform\u2026but will support us bilaterally. We are very confident,\u201d he told a media conference in Colombo on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In May this year, 17 countries that have extended loans to Sri Lanka formed an official creditor committee\u201d, co-chaired by India, Japan, and France, to discuss Sri Lanka\u2019s request for debt treatment, after last year\u2019s debilitating financial crisis pushed the country to a sovereign default. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has attended the committee\u2019s meetings as an observer, but its decision to stay out of the official creditors\u2019 committee complicates the exercise for Sri Lanka, especially with other creditors repeatedly underscoring creditor equitability. While private creditors holding International Sovereign Bonds (ISBs) have the largest share of Sri Lanka\u2019s foreign debt, China is the island\u2019s biggest bilateral lender, followed by Japan, and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issuing a statement following the first meeting of the creditors\u2019 committee the Paris Club \u2014 an informal group of official, mostly western, creditor nations \u2014 highlighted President Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s assurance of transparency and comparability of treatment for all external creditors, and that no side arrangements inconsistent with comparability of treatment\u201d will be made with any creditor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reiterating Mr. Wickremesinghe\u2019s promise, Minister Sabry said on Monday: All bilateral debt treatment will be comparable. That means no one will get anything better than the other. So, it is understood that ultimately, everybody must agree to the same kind of treatment,\u201d he said, implying that regardless of whether China joins the creditors\u2019 committee, or negotiates its debt treatment bilaterally with Sri Lanka, the terms will be the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s bilateral debt, the Minister said, is three-fold\u201d, including loans from the Chinese government, the Exim bank of China and the China Development Bank. Although not part of the platform, China is taking part as an observer, that means they know exactly what is being discussed, what kind of relief is required,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka is racing against time to restructure both its foreign and domestic debt, ahead of the September deadline set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for its first review after the Fund extended a nearly $3 billion package to the debt-distressed island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Sri Lankan parliament on Saturday approved the government\u2019s plan to restructure its domestic debt, by recasting pension funds, a decision that has drawn a strong backlash from the political opposition and government critics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY\u00a0MEERA SRINIVASAN Courtesy The Hindu BusinessLine The country faces the challenge of restructuring its foreign and domestic debt ahead of an IMF deadline. COLOMBO  China will not join\u201d the official creditors\u2019 platform negotiating a common debt treatment plan with Sri Lanka, but Colombo is very confident\u201d of Beijing\u2019s bilateral support to the island\u2019s economic recovery, Foreign Minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}